April 13, 2017
Saimir Pirgu to sing Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the London Royal Festival Hall
On April 13, 2017 Saimir Pirgu will be the tenor soloist in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the Royal Festival Hall in London, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and The Bach Choir conducted by Maestro Vasily Petrenko. Alongside him, soprano Maija Kovalevska, mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill and bass Alexander Vinogradov will perform.
“Verdi’s Messa da Requiem is one of my favorite works”, says Saimir Pirgu. “I sang it for the first time when Maestro Riccardo Muti invited me to the Salzburg Festival to perform it with the Wiener Philharmoniker, and I distinctly remember the incredibly strong emotion I felt in that circumstance.” After Salzburg, the Albanian born Italian naturalized tenor has frequently performed Verdi’s masterpiece: With Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, with Riccardo Muti at the Vienna Musikverein and at the Ljubljana Festival, with Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia, at Redipuglia’s Military Memorial at the presence of the President of the Italian Republic, under Gianandrea Noseda in Paris, Barcelona and Valencia, and under Yannick Nezét-Séguin at the Donostia-San Sebastian Festival.
Performances this year after this Messa da Requiem will lead Saimir Pirgu in his role debut as Gabriele Adorno in Simon Boccanegra to the Teatro San Carlo of Naples, as tenor soloist in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem in Madrid and the Granada International Festival, as Duca in a new production of Rigoletto to the Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, as Alfredo in La traviata to the Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, and as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly to Zurich.
Information about Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the SouthBank Centre: Royal Festival Hall, London.
Soloists: Maija Kovalevska, Karen Cargil, Saimir Pirgu, Alexander Vinogradov; Vasily Petrenko, conductor.
Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 7:30 P.M.